From Wiki,
In November 2007, the Obama presidential campaign released a policy document delaying NASA’s Constellation program by five years to fund education programs.[2] There was concern that any delay would prolong the gap after the Space Shuttle’s retirement, when the US would be dependent on the Russian government for access to the International Space Station.
The hard left has hated the U.S. space program since the 1960's - they always said that money spent on space exploration should be re-allocated to some government program that would allegedly "help the poor." Therefore the destruction of the American space program was a completely predictable result of the election of Obama, who is a protege of Bill Ayers and other 60's radicals.